Ghostkeeper

I realized that I was getting closer to Vancouver and closer to a lot of my film friends who were all making short films or working on American films. I even thought that I would stay in Calgary for a year maybe, or less. That is, if I get hired. Regina gave me the rules of film and I was ready. Even though I was writing commercials and wheat documentaries, I was learning. But I never really wrote any screenplays yet.

Calgary was bigger than Regina and the Rocky Mountains were about 30 miles away and can be seen from the city.And skiing. Once again,, I was a writer producer and I was doing the same thing as Regina. It wasn't movies but it was work. Calgary had a little bit of movies as a few Hollywood features were shot there. But Vancouver was bigger. Maybe I might make it to Vancouver yet.

But it changed drastically. I met a woman, Carole, with three kids and for four years we all lived happily. I was doing the same thing, car salesmen, some documentaries and a lot of fun there. Then one of the "writer-producer" friend decided to go off the station and look for work on movies. I thought a lot about it, there were movies being made but again, not like Vancouver.

My friend Harry had a screenplay he wrote and production was happening. Then he told me to join him as a co-producer. We were going to make a movie. And I was finally in the business that was real. Movies. I quit tv commercials.

Until we couldn't find enough money. 

Then I met another producer who worked with educational documentaries. I had started to write screenplays and made a rough version on paper. Doug knew someone who owned the 
hotel near Lake Louise. And we decided to make our movie. A horror movie. Ghostkeeper. It came by the fact that Doug had a friend who's father owned an old hotel in the middle and near giant Lake Louise hotel. All we wanted was the old hotel and it was closed for winter.

Doug and I couldn't really raise money very well. I realized this earlier as I was and still is not a guy who could raise money. So did Doug.

Harry came around and said he could finance it. And he did. There was one point left -- we had to shoot the film before January 1st. This was a government thing to help finance Canadian producers and writers. It was now December. Harry was the kind of guy who can raise money. He didn't get enough for his movie but he had enough for my movie.

Somehow it all started to be together. Our budget was $750,000. Harry knew oil men and other business men who were looking to cut something to cut their riches because they could do this. In fact, they actually could lose their money perfectly that way.

And since it was my script I was the director and writer, although Doug had a credit for producing also.  Harry knew a lot of rich oilmen and he found the money. 

I was going to make a movie. We managed to get the money spent before the end of the year and were sure we could do it. All the pieces seem to fit. We began shooting Ghostkeeper with enough time to make it.

 

I was excited as hell, finally making a movie. It wasn't great but it worked out. The actors were local except for the lead woman who came from Montreal. But the gold in the movie was Georgie, an older actress who was brilliant and saved our movie.

I brought another Vancouver friend, John, who was and still is a hell of a cameraman. I was totally taken with his work, he lit scenes with beauty and it made the movie look better.  

I was feeling good, it was all working, my real 35mm feature film. 

We finished on time and did post in Toronto, where Harry's brother was an editor and quite a good editor. He and I had arguments but he was smarter than me and I was okay with that.  I wouldn't know that this 1980 movie will come back to me 35 years later when it had begun to find

So I was a writer-director. No more car salesmen and Colonel Chicken.

But I didn't get a lot of money, in fact barely any. Harry took a lot and the money was gone. And so was Harry. He moved to Vancouver where he started a movie but it was never finished. I actually rewrote a lot of it for Harry. And this time he did pay me for the rewrites.

But I was broke. And being broke was not great for five people,, three of them kids. Carole and I decided to go their own way. We were always friends from there and still are. Ironically a few years before my ex and I divorced.

It didn't take long to look for work in Calgary but nobody really had anything going, except working on American TV and features shot here.

So what did I do? Go back home. Windsor/Detroit.

I stayed there for a month or two and decided to find money in Toronto. I also began to get financing from Canadian funding as much as $1500 -$5000 and more. I immediately saw that writing screenplays are a lot easier than trying to write and direct a movie. I think I got around $ $20 thousand dollars. And without having to return any of it. I loved Canada for keeping me alive over two years.

Then a savior of sorts had work - feature movies made for TV for budgets of about $180,000 each. Not great but I was working. Writing movies that went to other countries as well as here as well as directing. The owner, Lionel,  was cheap but he paid me well from those 3 movies he produced and he sent them all over the world along with twenty or so others.

Lionel shot in video and used the local TV station's equipment. Not the best but I was writing and directing three movies. I also had a good screenplay that a young producer wanted. He wanted some different ideas but it was all okay to me. I rewrote my script in two weeks and then handed it over. It actually was a good movie, about teenagers being used as pawns for older men. I still think it was one of my best and it sold to Lifetime Channel.

And then I decided to go to Los Angeles. My Camaro was in good shape and I had wanted to go to Hollywood like everybody else does. It was more than that, I really never worked in Toronto, except for the news camera job a few years back. And the 3 cheap movies from Lionel. My joke was that our cameraman, who worked for hockey games should have a hockey pock on his forehead. Nasty, I know, but they were not fun.
 

L.A. would be my friend.

Home on the range

I had bought my trusty 1968 Mustang just like Steve McQueen's except his engine was more powerful. But anyone who had one was hot stuff. It already had taken me from Windsor/Detroit to Toronto and then to Vancouver and nowI had packed up and thanked my ex's sister's home in Vancouver and headed east in the middle of winter. All along I was mixed, I could turn back to beautiful Vancouver but there's money ahead. I had moved around Vancouver but with no real place of my own.

And right now I arrived in Regina and found a motel along the highway and a few minutes to the TV station. I stepped out of the Mustang into freezing cold and put a pizza on the hood and proceeded to put my stuff into the room. When I returned to the pizza it was already cold. Welcome minus - 25F. You don't wanna stay outside too long.

Next morning, I arrived at the TV station and noticed something I'd never seen in Vancouver. These were cords leading to all the cars in the parking lot. They were there so that you could start your car again at the end of a day and go home. My Mustang was having trouble but finally made out.

I met everyone, most of them, some were mad someone from the big city came here instead of a local boy. I'd never had written a commercial and never really told the crew what to do. I found a lot of the crew were helpful, however some were just not friendly. They didn't want outsiders taking their jobs.

I made it through the winter and began to enjoy the green fields and flatlands. After all, I grew up to age 12 in Manitoba,east of Regina and and then went to the Windsor/ Detroit. A long way. But I also had friends and some family about 150 miles away and I would sometimes take a weekend off to see them.

I also found out that a remote cousin who actually owned the biggest bakery in the city. 

So what did I do besides commercials; short documentaries mostly about farms and farming. I learned that there was a small American bar about 100 miles south and that a lot of locals from Regina would drive there. I learned that driving distances in Saskatchewan was normal. We shot short films everywhere. Some of my new friends took me down to the border as at that time, Canada was dry on Sundays. It turned out to be quite the place, a lot of Canadians would come down to drink and shop.

One time during the winter we where stopped by a Mountie, the RCMP.  He thought the driver was swaying too much on the highway. He took us to the closest RCMP station where we sat there and finally he let us go. Our friend wasn't drunk, it was really having to fight the winter winds on old highways.

I learned a lot more there even though it was a small market. I must have written and produced at least two or three hundred. It wasn't Hollywood, but it was doing this for real. Ironically I had some of my best sailing just outside of Regina, in deep valleys that gave us fantastic wind in the middle of nothing. My Toronto buddy Jim taught me how to sail.

The product we did wasn't great, it was still video tape and in color and that was just fine with me. I was working. These weren't really good, mostly for local businesses. I  began local car dealers and got help from the "other Jim" had stopped to see a friend and ended up staying there. I also got the Colonel Sanders account wherein we would bring a stack of fried chicken and we filmed chicken.

After a few months I found out how to get a crew happy. If I had a Colonel chicken ad, I noticed that the crew didn't really say anything about a tray of chicken and where it went. One of the video guys said to feed 'em and they'll help you forever.

I can't remember how I discovered another job. I think it was from a friend of a friend in Vancouver. There was an opening in Calgary, Alberta, a larger city and at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It would certainly be a lot more interested, one of my friends, a film camera man who shot news and local commercials had left and I wondered if I should stay or leave. Then a producer from Calgary phoned me. He was returning to Calgary and Regina was right in the middle. With an airport.

He landed and stayed for a fast stopover and asked me about the Cooperage film. I said yes. He said I could come into Calgary as soon as possible. The work was still commercials but it was a little over half a million people. And the mountains not far away for skiing.

Once again -- "1976 Academy Awards".

I was here almost about 2 years and again, have learned more and more. I had a chance and I didn't want to lose it. I left Regina.   

 One last thing I hadn't said though, was that my 68 Mustang fastback was showing age and in the winter cold, the car needed work and I knew what I had to do. I called my brother Dave in Windsor/Detroit and said I'd sold it to him. The hitch was our dad was a mechanic and I knew he would fix it up.

I drove it back home in Windsor and bought a brand new 1977 Camaro. Pretty hot. It will take me on adventures a long way.

The deal was made on the cars and the new job was ready. I had come a long way from home and wife and we continued talking about what we were going to do. 

And the Mustang will appear again.